No False Users

Don’t confuse fact and fiction when creating ad-hoc user stories.

In technical meetings, imaginative scenarios emerge quickly—streetlights connected to hospital shifts to guide nurses home safely, buses linked with pollution data to reduce emissions. While these possibilities are intriguing, they remain fantasies without evidence of actual user demand.

User stories should be grounded in reality, not speculation. “For centuries now, explorers have been trying to find this fabled land of barter - none with success,” as David Graeber notes regarding Adam Smith’s fabricated economic history. Smith invented a barter-based origin story for money despite anthropological evidence showing diverse economic systems actually existed.

This illustrates how persuasive fictional narratives can reshape fundamental thinking. Smith’s tale proved so believable it altered how we understand human behavior—obscuring that people inherently share and support one another.

The danger lies in letting spontaneous product stories gain momentum as technical justifications. Rather than assuming “if you build it, they will come,” we should validate assumptions immediately. Modern technology enables rapid feedback—asking nurses on social media takes minutes, yet could redirect solutions toward genuine problems rather than inventing needs to justify technology.

Innovation divorced from community engagement simply perpetuates existing inequality. Imaginative scenarios provide valuable starting points, but user stories must remain grounded in evidence. Separating speculation from reality prevents wasting resources on solutions addressing problems nobody actually faces.